flimsy lo and. behold rachel that isn't winning nothing people are suggesting she's told her no she says she's a star. to .

talk about her big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour now the thing is certain except death and taxes right let's of course you're a big corporation then forget about those taxes and about death for that matter so americans finally awakened to the apocrypha see here and are you a state that doesn't like obama's health care plan well as the president says you can opt out take a look at the fine print ahead. then later my daily take on what could not be has to do with wisconsin here's a hint divide and conquer. labor

protests weren't the only demonstrations occurring nationwide this week inspired by the u.k.'s uncut movement hundreds of thousands of people across the country joined the us uncut movement on us to speak out against massive transnational corporations that don't pay any taxes carl gibson co-founder the new movement said i have one dollar in my wallet that's more than the combined income tax liability of g.e. exxon mobil citibank and bank of america i mean somebody is gaining the system and he's gaming the system aright he had boeing wells fargo was to tax evaders as well more than one hundred u.s. uncut supporters shut down the bank of america in washington d.c. on saturday so this finally the start of european type activism in america to combat the g.o.p.'s reckless austerity measures for more on this i'm joined a studio by ryan clayton washington d.c.

spokesman and co-founder of us uncut and via skype johann hari the contributor to the nation magazine ryan johann welcome both of you thanks for having us really return to the show thanks for being here. i'm curious first. i was going to give you your u.r.l. and there are going to throw it in and suddenly it occurred to me i know it's dot org is it us uncut or is it just on it's us. a larger orgy if you got it it seems like somebody took the dot com and turned it into some kind of right wing something i always had a long time ago that's not a problem we're going to listen ok. let me start with you johann what what does uncut mean more to come from people in britain have been told by conservatives for the past few years ever since. it's a deal with this must have absolutely massive cuts to public services and the people who caused this crisis just carried on partying like it's nineteen ninety

seven and say what you guys are being told by the tea party but what's been really interesting here is a movement is just saying actually there's a whole of the narrative of what's being done to us and the way out there. the british people have been ripped off royally on this. dramatisation it's the best. the conservative government is introducing the biggest cuts in public spending since the one nine hundred twenty s. at the same time as they were allowing absolutely massive tax giveaways to the biggest corporations and there was a small even of people that started bringing this together so for to give you one example because it's a government introducing cuts to rent subsidies for the poorest people in britain i mean in london alone according to the conservative mayor of london himself over two hundred thousand of the poorest people being thought out of their homes and many of them will become homeless the exact cost of that six billion pounds can be met by one company vodafone one of the biggest cell phone companies in britain that by

making them pay their taxes they've been refusing to pay a very large outstanding tax bill for a very long time and when the conservative government came to power they just cancelled it and what you can cut was bring together those two things it was liberals here was demoralized as liberals in the united states and liberals everywhere else and starting last group of twelve ordinary people came together they were meeting in a pub you know and they were like a lot of people a lot of your viewers i'm sure they were very angry and they were feeling very important and they said well why don't we just do something why don't we they were so outraged by what happened with the vodafone tax bill and the fact that this money was there not used to keep people in their homes they said why don't we just go i want to just set a date we'll announce on twitter and we'll go mow shut down the largest. in london the one on oxford street and they went and they did it they just sat. i'm in front of vodafone and they said if you want to operate on our street you got to pay our taxes it was raining as it goes and press coverage three days later in a different pretty city completely unconnected to them when the local vodafone

store they shut down suddenly spread all over britain the next week had fifty different cities in britain shut down their local vodafone stalls i recently grown since that. huge effect on changing the public personally and showing that there is an alternate if you know one hundred twenty billion pounds it is avoided in taxes avoided integrated in taxes every year in britain back up almost all of your service across the happening but also you see even change that even the conservative government's policy you know the national audit office which is kind of independent already you know have you on i have to jump in here and because we only have two minutes left and i want you all are trying to get in on this. ryan i you know i read about this in the financial times i i saw the british press there was some small coverage over the us press but. you know the tea party has billionaires and multi-millionaires behind them the cokes and the and the dick armies of the world and they've got big p.r.

firms all kinds of stuff and that seems to generate press in the united states how do you expect to get and you know the press in the u.k. is. or in europe generally you know the national press how do you expect the a coverage here that will bring people out or is this entirely going to be based on things like twitter and well first of all let me say that johan's article is an inspiration and u.k. uncut is an inspiration and they have a powerful message you know when i first read that article and i read that regular everyday people were stopping on the sidewalk and saying hey what are you doing in there like we were protesting these you know corporate tax dodgers because we're doing all these cuts are valuable services and those are the people walking by on the street or like let me join you i'm going to spend the rest of my day with you doing this and i was like that is a powerful message you know if they would just pay their taxes then you know we could solve every state budget crisis without firing one. more future and we can fix the federal budget without touching social security and we can put americans back to work and drive down unemployment and you know making that one decision i

think that's worth it and i think most americans do too and when you tell them the facts you know people in america a pretty smart if you tell them the facts on this one everybody agrees with you i'm sitting with kirpan here for americans for prosperity and i ask him what he thinks and he says yeah i agree with you people shouldn't god their taxes you know i'm of course i'm not going to come down and be in favor of corporate tax deadbeats you know so if he can agree with me on his side i'm very far right you know and we can get them out majority of americans to agree with this and you can run with you guys about half your bank of america bank of america has used one hundred fifteen offshore tax havens to pay no taxes whatsoever the united states after we gave them thirty five billion dollars in the little less than a minute we have left how is how is that being replicated across corporate america what can we do about it will break of america made four point four billion dollars in pretax income in two thousand and nine and they paid zero dollars in taxes they paid less money than you and i have in our pockets in fact that is what should be a red flag to our political leaders that somebody is gaming the system you know and

if that if bank of america alone paid their tax bill then we wouldn't have to cut one point seven billion dollars in early childhood education for head start programs title one programs i don't really think that it was bouncing back into business wisconsin would be fine actually if they if they made corporations pay their tax there and unfortunately governor walker knows that and that's why he's using public sort of workers and cutting them as a scapegoat for the problems that he's created and i would encourage him to consult his conscience and think about what he's doing in the long term impact on the lives of people with wisconsin and around the country brian yohan thank you both for being with us today and thank you for having us it's a pleasure good luck i've been saying for a long time we need to bring the anti austerity protests in europe across the ocean to north america now that they're here it's time to make america pay literally p a why pay for getting us into this mess in the first place all these transactional corporations are off the hook for paying taxes the rest of us are getting swindle.

there's a pretty straightforward process and a pretty straightforward description of what's going on and it here for example sock it off in a big city scott walker is blaming this banks or disaster this this is you know what brought down were brought down the pension funds what has brought down the economy was massive fraud in the banking sector all over the world to be a look at what happened in iceland just now the iceland there they had a national referendum should we as a country pay back the banks or pay back europe for the money from the banks as we're not ninety five percent of the people said no ireland their entire government is changes we need to be doing the same it's high time people started calling these guys out in one nine hundred eighty six savings and loan crisis reagan sent over two thousand banks tourist to jail one of the few he didn't send to jail was neil bush you know a million bucks for the silverado but you know use a push and you know is the time to do the same thing again except that these guys

are very these banks there's these billionaire bankers very very active campaign donors so let's hope something can give and it's going to take actually a lot of us pushing we need to start now. it's time for a daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question should fat cat bankers be tightening their belts now that us regular cats don't have any wiggle room left possible answers yes let's stand up for hardworking americans roll back those reagan tax cuts those banks could stand to lose a little money wait or no hands off wall street exacts despite the bailout and fancy feast on payday. loans no you think the polls open till tomorrow morning.

president obama announced today that he would support legislation that allows states to opt out of south reform law in twenty fourteen if they meet certain requirements take a look. if your state can create a plan that covers as many people as affordably and comprehensively as the affordable care act does without increasing the deficit you can implement that plan and we'll work with you to do it i've said before i don't believe that any single party has a monopoly on good ideas and i will go to bat for whatever works no matter who or where it comes from. the proposed legislation that the president was referring to was introduced by democratic senator ron wyden and republican senator scott brown and it allows states to create their own health care systems in lieu of the affordable care act sometimes called obamacare as long as those states cover as many people with the same benefits as that law mandates this could be helpful for

states like vermont and oregon that are talking about creating single payer health care systems it also put more pressure on republican lawmakers who are opposed to the health reform law to create alternatives in their own home states says president obama reading the handwriting on the wall it says the best way to a national single payer system may be through the states ron pollack joins me now to offer his take executive director and vice president of families usa ron welcome to the program good to see you tom great to have you here with us are we seeing the saskatchewan set up here for our listeners who we don't know maybe you'd like to describe that or i can but first i think it's very important to understand that what the president did today is not a big departure of what exists in the current laws reciprocally any affordable care act there really is a clear set of provisions that allows the states to do experimentation and as you indicated there are some rules that go with it first you've got to cover at least as many people as the affordable care act would have in years say you've got to

provide at least those generous benefits at the affordable care act and it's got to protect people's out of pocket costs not what the president did today is the effect of twenty seventeen that's right so what the president did today was he allowed if this legislation passes for these waivers to go into effect three years early in two thousand and fourteen rather than so services catch one set up that i was talking about special i was the first province in canada to have a nation to have a single payer health care system and within a few years of it spread across the country because everybody said hey that. and really good we're going back and and. you know this seems very tenth amendment you know in a way it's it's the ultimate states' rights thing shouldn't this be one of those rare things that democrats or republicans might be able to or at least tea parties guys you know the freshman republicans in the house and democrats might agree on

well let's be clear first the republicans are actually not interested in improving this legislation they want to they want to kill this legislation and they've already voted just so it's well that you know they they voted to repeal the legislation in the house the senate rejected that they voted to cut off funding for the implementation they are not interested in improving the legislation. i think but what's critical here is that the key protections in the legislation about benefits coverage affordability be included now whether it's a single payer system or another alternative that's what's going to be really critical here and do you think that that could make it through a house that's controlled by republicans or. if you asked me to predict my answer is no i don't think it will and i don't think it will you know the senate is sold

as the states' rights issue is that's that's how obama framed it today we're not dealing with the merits of legislation or you know it's as senator mitch mcconnell indicated his top priority is top first second and third priority is to beat president obama in two thousand and twelve and one of the ways they're trying to do it is they try to tear down the affordable care act so they're not going to try to make it better or to tweak it. whether this actually ultimately makes that better i don't know you may have a state like vermont that wants to do something in a radical forever right now actually yes they are but there may be some states that . you're going to want to do something that goes in the opposite direction and that's why it's so important that the rules for this be clearly a very saying you know we'll just pull pull texas out of this thing altogether and it's it's going to be a tough one in a minute we have left given the citizens united decision given the power of big

money here on both parties frankly is there anything that can be done other than just you know now this is that this is been passed this piece just letting it go on . this is hooly historic legislation and we're talking about expanding coverage for tens of millions of people making coverage more affordable for people providing subsidies for them placing ceilings on how much they have to pay out of pocket improving the quality of care this is enormously important and job one is to get this implemented as effectively as possible and concurrent with that as we got to make sure that these attacks on the affordable care act. very well said ron paul and thanks so much for greatness and keep up the great work with families it was great to have you republicans have always champion states rights well let's came out there not one progressive states like vermont in oregon create singles successful season single payer health care systems and the rest of the country may well stampede to follow suit and still ahead here on the big picture

divide and conquer the new g.o.p. strategy in america. lindsey lowe and. he's the preacher he's winning nothing people are suggesting she's done for no she says she's a star. alan .

time now for the good bad and the insanely ugly good filmmaker charles ferguson ferguson a producer audrey mars won the academy award for best documentary film last night for an inside job a film about the two thousand and unanswered crisis and how the actions of a greedy few ruined the lives of the working class masses ferguson used as spotlight at the oscars to lament the lack of accountability on wall street three years later. i must start by pointing out that three years after own horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud not a single financial executive is going to jail and that's wrong. well said at

least those comments brought the issue back into the headlines today should be there every day but bad brian kilmeade he's become a regular on this list this morning on fox and friends with the words organized chaos plastered across the screen kilmeade pose this question. if you need bargains breaking the public piggy bank should it be abolished altogether. bargain has nothing to do with these deficits the public piggy bank is broke because corporations and billionaires don't contribute anything to it for ever and the very very ugly republican simple lunch the former governor of minnesota is likely to run for president next year and over the weekend he demonstrated just how dangerous he is saying that a government shutdown would be a good thing. you've got to get back to certain principles and responsibilities and starting to get the budget balanced and if it takes a dramatic moment dramatic. could dramatically among those kinds of lines in the sand moments are what we need politicians back and have to make the tough decisions

for us well for veterans do social security recipients of middle class government workers a dramatic month could be in serious hardships but those people don't matter as long as you score some political points right temp that's piri piri of. what's the secret to how despots around the world stay in power for so long three words divide and conquer it's a military and political strategy that's used to claim and keep claim and keep power by dividing up other powerful groups into society and turn them against each other it's a tactic that dates back to the roman empire and was used by julius caesar money all powers used to constantly and how the belgians took over all the onda they

arbitrarily divided two groups of people based on the will of their noses into two groups hutus and tutsis and then turn those two groups against each other it's simple if you can keep the populations anger and mistrust focused on each other you can rule without obstruction look at any despot around the world in particular moammar gadhafi playing the various tribes of libya off against each other for decades and you'll see that the secret to their decades long rule is to divide and conquer. there's a lot of anger within the middle class right now and who can blame harper workers have seen basically no increase in their wages in the last thirty years while the cost of living has been going ever higher thus forcing people deeper and deeper into debt just to make ends meet we see the credit card companies that we're now beholden to take advantage of the fine print hidden charges and high interest rates to screw us over for higher profits the middle class has seen health insurance companies raise premiums in the last decade by more than one hundred thirty percent

making genuinely high quality insurance coverage a luxury for the rich and while they struggle their bosses have been laughing all the way to the bank in the one nine hundred eighty s. a corporate c.e.o. would make about forty times more than his or her and most lowly paid employee thirty that number is four hundred times more there's a vast underclass being created in america comprised of what used to be the middle class that is now our nation's working poor people with low wages no health insurance and i did and this raw deal the private sector to sector corporate workers are getting is thanks to a thirty year war against labor unions in the one nine hundred eighty s. before reagan started union busting about a quarter of all employees in our nation belong to a union today in the private sector only seven percent that means only seven percent of the private workforce in america enjoys historically middle class benefits like good health care and pension plans are high wage because he's

basically a comfortable middle class lifestyle courtesy of organized labor the rest of the people are growing more and more poor and angry. but instead of focusing their anger toward the c.e.o.'s who are under pain them and taking away their benefits and instead of focusing the anger on republican politicians who promote laws to let c.e.o.'s get away with these abuses that anger is focused on their fellow workers their neighbors and middle class america who work for government that's what we see going on it was we in wisconsin today republican governor scott walker and his cohorts are trying to mr direct that anger and divide the middle class and pick corporate workers who are desperate against government paid workers the private sector union membership has steadily declined in the last few decades public sector unions like teachers and state and local government officials have remained almost exactly the same for the last thirty years virtually immune from reagan's war on unions as the union busting industry

has been going into private corporations to do their dirty. republicans want to destroy a major funder and supporter of democratic party politicians unions and the low hanging fruits right now are the still unionized government employee unions the republican strategy is simple and old is time divide and conquer by telling union busting corporate workers that all their troubles can be blamed on public sector union workers the g.o.p. is fomenting rage among a desperate population at the same time keeping themselves out of the crosshairs angry about your low wages don't blame your boss blame the teachers angry by your lack of health insurance told blame billionaire health insurance executives blame your neighbor the school bus driver anger the wall street bankers gambled with your pension and last cup blame the politicians that deregulated wall street but the fire department union never mind the facts. you know on average public workers

actually make four percent in the private counterparts in some states it's much just twenty percent less when comparing similar levels of education and experience as far as benefits go government employees simply enjoy the same benefits that corporate workers used to enjoy before reaganomics before republicans dismantle their unions as long as the g.o.p. and their billionaire buddies succeed in dividing the middle class against each other they can carry out their kleptocratic agenda of creating an economy of for and by the rich with little obstruction this is what is happening right now we're turning against each other there's a joke going on right now about how a c.e.o. a union worker and a tea partier are all sitting at a table that has a plate on it with a dozen cookies the c.e.o. grabs and eats eleven of the cookies and then looks at the tea party or and says look out for the union guy he wants tea party or cookie it's exactly what's

happening and it's got to stop we need to unite here in america those who belong to the working class or nation corporate workers and government workers pretty much all want the same thing a comfortable middle class life they want to raise their family put their kids through college enjoy some leisure time all without going in debt up to their eyeballs and as long as we're divided that quality of life will remain a distant dream for far too many people who can't let the g.o.p. succeed in dividing us but stop the race to the bottom stand with our neighbors realize we're all in this together and reclaim the american dream for workers. i saw a picture first night for more information you can visit our website it's on our check out of egypt page at youtube dot com slash big picture r t r t dot com plus we have free podcasts or i tunes and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there and get active tag and your it will see the.

wealthy british sign. on to. the market. find out what's really happening to the global economy with a much stronger or a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser reports. the official anti allocation. i pod touch from the.

video on demand. fuel costs and r.s.s. feeds in the palm of your. question.